“WE WILL NOT MISS HIM (MAYOR LIM)”- ERAP

MAYOR ALFREDO LIM……….THE POLITICAL BUTTERFLY

MANILA TIMES – Thursday, August 21, 2008

Mayor Lim resigns as president of Estrada’s party

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim resigned on Wednesday as president of Joseph Estrada’s political party—the Partido ng Masang Pilipino (PMP).

Lim submitted a letter of resignation to former President Estrada on Wednesday, after Estrada publicly announced that the mayor is leaving the party.

“With due respect, [and] consistent with your recent public pronouncement that I have resigned from PMP, I am therefore hereby tendering my irrevocable resignation from the said party retroactive from the date of your announcement,” according to Lim’s letter to Estrada.

The other day, the mayor denied that he had resigned and that he was clueless about where the rumors about quitting the party came from.

He added that he was not thinking of resigning, and that he was merely serving as party president at the pleasure of Estrada. If the former president wants to have another person head the party, Lim said he would accede to Estrada’s wishes.

“It makes me sad that it had to end this way,” Lim said Wednesday. “But I will bow to his wishes. I will remain as an oppositionist, an independent oppositionist.”

But the mayor said he would remain in the opposition fold and that Estrada would remain his good friend.

‘Political butterfly’

Reacting to the resignation, Estrada said also Wednesday that Lim was “not a loss” to the party.

Lim served as Interior and Local Government secretary of Estrada from 1999 to 2001.

Cracks in their relationship first appeared when the Manila mayor joined the 2001 people power revolution that ousted Estrada from office.

Estrada was arrested for and convicted of plunder after a six-year trial. Then President Gloria Arroyo, who toppled Estrada, pardoned him.

On Wednesday Estrada recounted the days leading to his removal from office, saying that after attending a Cabinet meeting, Lim asked permission to leave to “be able to account for several obligations” but then was seen at EDSA.

He then called Lim a “political butterfly.”

In a resolution by the party’s executive committee, Lim was removed as president of the party. Estrada, who is also the party chairman, replaced Lim in a simple ceremony at the historic Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan City. That is the political bailiwick of the former president, who was formerly a mayor there. And his son, JV Ejercito, is the incumbent mayor.

As party president, Estrada said he would strengthen the membership of the Partido ng Masang Pilipino in order to boost its chances in the 2010 presidential elections.

Estrada denied again on Wednesday that he plans to run for president in the next elections. But he had also said earlier that he would consider running if the opposition fails to rally behind one opposition candidate.

–Rommel C. Lontayao And Francis Earl A. Cueto